 was to my right leg, bada bing, bada boom. That wraps up hip and strength, mobility. Whew, that was hard. Onward and upward, how we doing everybody? Here we go. My full prehab routine for runners at home. We're diving right in because I'm not running right now. I have a little bit of extra time to film a vlog like this one, where I'm gonna walk you through everything, every step I'm doing at my house to stay healthy in 2020. And so, prehab, where does that name come from? I did not come up with it. I don't know who invented it, but I think it's very creative. So instead of rehab, which is a reaction, usually to an injury, prehab is steps that we can take as runners at our houses to stay healthy. Now you've seen me do most of these exercises here at my house in the vlogs over the past two years, but I've never made one video where all of the exercises, stretches, movements are in one video in one location. So now you can bookmark this link and come back to it over and over again throughout the next week, month, whatever the timeline might be for you to integrate, maybe not all of the exercises and movements that I do, but some of them. And I will say, I realize this is not maybe the most exciting vlog that I've ever published, but it may be a very valuable one for you if you are striving to stay healthy and frankly, even just become a stronger runner. And for all of these movements, I'll just say I'm not a physical therapist. I'm not a massage therapist. I'm definitely not a doctor. I'm not even like a certified strength coach. I'm a runner, okay? But what I do is I run a lot, sometimes I get injured, and then I listen. I listen to the experts on what I can do to prevent injuries in the future. So all of these stretches, movements is information that I've absorbed for the last 22 years, basically. From my high school cross-country coach to my collegiate cross-country and track coach, and then my collegiate lifting coach, and then a physical therapist, a massage therapist, et cetera, et cetera. I'm trying to think of, oh yeah, and then one last. Also, some people that I have gotten to know through YouTube, through Instagram, who have been sharing tips and tricks with me, who have a medical background. I've never met them in person, but I'm also integrating, for example, this slant board right here, okay? This is something I picked up from a vlog fan who taught me about it, and frankly, so far, it's doing wonders for my runner's knees. So I just wanna say, take everything I say with a grain of salt. I'm not a medical expert, but I am a runner who's striving to be healthy. All right, there we go. Let's get set up here. And I guess first things first, there's my cruiser one kicks. I'm gonna take these off. So I think it's always good to do as much movement, these exercises as possible without shoes on in order to stimulate and strengthen the little muscles and stretch out the everything in your feet, but the tendons, the muscles down in your feet. And that helps by not wearing shoes, okay? So let me just get set up here. Now I should also mention that there's a lot of gear you're gonna see in this video. You don't need all of this gear. Many of the movements I do, you can just do with your body weight, but some of these items do help, okay? For example, you don't have to have a pad like this. I love it because I have hardwood floors, but if you have carpet at your house, that works too. If you don't have carpet and you're extra tough, tougher than me, then you can just go on the hardwood floor. I almost forgot to mention for every section of pre-habbing at your house that we're gonna run you through right now, I'm gonna put the time codes down in the description so you can jump to feet strengthening if you just wanna focus on your feet or your hip mobility, if you just wanna focus on your hip mobility or stretching or et cetera, et cetera, okay? So time codes are listed in the description so you can fast forward if one of the sections is more interesting or more important for you as a runner. All right, just wanted to mention that. Okay, here we go. Before we dive into the movements, the exercises, step number one, of course, is the warmup. If you have time to go walk around your block or go for a quick jog around your block, you know, two, three, four minutes, that's awesome. Most of us don't even have that kind of time to get out the door and then come back in. So I use the foam roller for my warmup to warm up the legs. Also in here, just in my house, I'll show you in a second, I do butt kickers and high knees. And yes, in the summertime, when it's really nice out, you can do them in your front yard, your backyard, your neighbors might look at you kind of funny, but those are a couple other options for warming up the legs, but I'll just start first with, and you can have a regular foam roller, 12 bucks maybe right here, maybe 10 bucks, or a really nice electric one, but they both can accomplish the same thing. This one just happens to vibrate. And I think it helps, especially when your legs are extra tired, but you're looking at $200 with this one. So affordable, not so affordable. Now I do get a lot of questions about the foam rolling. I typically foam roll for 10 minutes, all right? At least 10 minutes. I start with the easiest position, which is this one, where both of your legs are on the foam roller, you have your calves here, and you're just rolling back and forth, and I better pause right now. Tip number one, number one tip for foam rolling, the slower you go, the better. It's critical. The slower you go, if you go fast, your muscles, it's not digging in as deep as going slow, okay? So slower the better with foam rolling. After doing both legs on the foam roller for maybe 30 to 45 seconds, I will hop onto one leg. So you cross the leg over here, and that puts extra weight on that calf. And oh, does it start to burn a little bit, and it digs in even that much deeper. And you see, I'm already going a little too fast. I gotta slow down, just slow down, okay? And then I'll switch to the other leg, hold it for 30 to 45 seconds, just nice and easy, both legs. And then I'll do, so let me just turn this off. I'll do calves, hamstrings, quads. I'll even do, I'll go like this. So hopefully you can see this there, the tibialis anterior right along. So if you have shin splints or history of shin splints, and I'll get a better shot here in a second, but basically just rolling up the side of your tibia bone and just nice and gentle, oh my goodness, it feels so good, especially when you're running a lot to get that the front of your shin and slightly to the side, because the front of your shin is right on the bone, you don't wanna go right on the bone just off to the side, and oh man, does it feel good. So again, for the foam rolling, each section of muscles, I'll stay on the muscles for about two to two and a half minutes. So the quads, the hamstrings, the calves, and then the tibialis right in the front near the shins. So all of that takes approximately 10 minutes for the warmup. Then if you have enough space, you can also do some butt kickers. So just boom, you can also do these in place just to get the muscles going a little bit more, just like that. Then also some high knees. So boom, boom, boom. So high knees, the knees wanna hold your hands basically straight out, and you can do these in place. I like to usually move forward when I do that. But again, butt kickers is also part of the warmup. Just boom, boom, boom. And I'll do both for 30 seconds each. And by the end, believe it or not, you are breathing like I am right now. All right, so after the warmup with a foam roller, and then some butt kickers, some high knees, you should feel warmed up a much more than 12 to 15 minutes ago. The blood is pumping through the body. You should be breathing a little bit, especially after the butt kickers. And then it's on to the stretching. So the first stretch I like to do is the hip flexor stretch, all right? And this one I need to work on. I constantly need to be monitoring my hip flexors. So your hip flexors are here in the front of your leg, right here, all right? And there's a lot. There's a lot of muscles and tendons happening going from, oh gosh, basically your stomach area, your abs all the way down to your knees. There's just a lot happening through this hip flexor. So how I like to stretch my hip flexors is to put my one leg up on a chair or a couch and then have your other leg slowly dip down toward the ground and oh my goodness, this is about as far as I can go. But again, I'm feeling it right through here and I'll move the camera. It stretches so, so good. And with runner's knee, I really need to pay attention to the hip flexor stretch. Okay, and then all for this, I'll hold it for 30 seconds and then switch to the other leg, okay? So put it back, might take you a little second to get your balance but you'll get it and then hold it for 30 seconds and I will do that two times, okay? So let's just say 28, 29, 30 and then I'll switch again. So two sets, two sets by 30 seconds for the hip flexor. Next stretch is the Cobra's. So it's almost like you're getting into a pushup position but your knees are on the ground and then you drop your hips toward the ground and it's just like a cobra kind of raising his head up into the sky, into the air and what this is getting is your lower back and oh, it feels amazing, especially if you have a tight back. So mine is always, mine is constantly tight but basically you want to kind of look toward the sky and just hold it again. I do two by 30 seconds. So I'll hold it for 30 seconds and then rest for 15 seconds. So for resting I'll just kind of come out of the position, sit here for 15 seconds and then I'll go back down into the Cobra stretch where I'll hold it for another 30 seconds, all right? All right, that's the Cobra stretch to get that back. It's important. Okay, so after the Cobra is the groin. Simple stretch, again two sets of 30 seconds. So just hold it and for me the key is to keep that back straight instead of slouching over. I like to keep the back straight. Bring the feet in a little closer to the body and then you just get in that groin inside of the thigh. Oh, it's really good and especially if you're often sore or tight in that inner thigh. So it gets that whole area real good. Next is the glutes and the piriformis stretch, okay? So for the glutes, there's a couple of different ways you can do this. One way that I love to do this is to cross one leg over and it's kind of an awkward position until you get used to it but basically you're gonna dip down into this stretch and oh, you're getting your glute. So I'm stretching my right glute right now and again, two by 30 seconds. So each leg, so actually it's four sets of 30 seconds, okay? Cause you can't stretch both at once. So that's the right side and then to switch, you put your right leg back on the ground and then cross over your left leg. Oh, and my left, I am very sore and tight right now. So this one hurts more. But again, hold this for 30 seconds and then I'll switch back over to my right. I'll give you a different angle just so you can see it for the left. There it is. You just kind of dip down. You see how I'm moving my arms? My shoulders are kind of coming forward toward my feet and that's when the stretch gets deep. Now the other option for the glutes and piriformis stretch is to do this where you pull your leg toward your chest and try and cross it over your body as much as possible without, you know, you don't want to strain yourself but you can also stretch your glutes this way. So kind of pulling your knee toward your chest and then crossing over your body, over your chest. That is another option for the glutes and piriformis stretch. Next are the quads. Now there's actually a lot of different ways to stretch your quads. Some people stand up. I prefer because I learned this one in college from my college coach. I prefer to do it this way but some people don't like doing it this way when I'm about to show you because they think it puts a little too much strain on their knees. So just be careful. If your knees are sensitive or you have sore knees, you may want to avoid this one but basically you put both feet right in front of you and then you push your knees toward away from your body, I should say, and then right there, oh my goodness. It stretches the quads so well. So right now I'm stretching my right quad because I'm putting my right leg down toward the ground and my left quad is staying up in the air and then I'll hold it for 30 seconds. I'm on my right side and then after 30 seconds I'll switch to the left. So now I'm stretching my left. It's just subtle but the left leg is going down. Right leg coming up and that's two, again two by 30 seconds and then back to the right for another 30, back to the left for another 30. Okay, so that's the quad stretch. I will show you the other option is this one. So where you're standing up, a lot of people stretch the quads this way where basically you simply catch your leg like that and boom, and you can stretch your quad this way. It requires a little more balance I will say but once you get in, if you do it with shoes on it's a lot easier but you're simply pulling your leg back so that is another way to stretch your quad but I prefer again to do it on, I prefer to do it on the ground. Here's another angle just for you like that. Okay, so right now I'm stretching my left side right there and then on the right I just go a little lower that way, okay? So that's the quad stretch and then oh yeah, onto the calves. So this is where, let me set this up real quick. This is a piece of gear that you definitely do not have to get but I am enjoying it a lot because I think it's gonna help me stay healthy. I'm gonna use it in a different way as well here in a second but this is my slant board. Many of you have already seen this on the channel. It's about, this one was about $50, okay? So they're not cheap. I will have this for the rest of my life though. The company is yes for all, is the company and I will have this for the rest of my life because I can tell the build quality of the construction is really high. Now for the slant board, I like to do a minute hold. So instead of 30 seconds, a minute, so two sets by a minute. If you have time to do three sets, especially if you have really tight calves, I think that's important. Now, of course, not everyone can afford or wants to buy another piece of recovery gear like that that that's a bit, you know, it's kind of a lot of storage. So another way to stretch your calves is to get into kind of the pushup position and basically my left, if I'm stretching my left leg, my left foot is gonna be on the ground and I put it back like that. Many of you do this one, again two sets by 30 seconds if you choose to stretch your calves this way. Another great one is of course to push against the wall and one benefit of pushing against the wall is I think you can stretch your soleus well which is your soleus, so if this is your calf muscle, this is your soleus right below your calf and your soleus, if you bend your knee while pressing against the wall, I'll show you here in one second, you're able to stretch that soleus really, really well. On the slant board, you really don't have an option. You're stretching, it's a really, really deep stretch because of the angle of that slant board and you're getting your calf and your soleus in that one stretch. Okay, so let me just get that wall pressed real quick. Okay, so here's the calf stretch for the wall. Many of you stretch your calves like this where you're pressing against the wall so if you keep your knee straight, you're getting your calf, then if you start to bend your knee, you start to get your soleus, okay? Another option is there's a lot of different ways to stretch your calves is to put your foot against the wall but anyway, so there's no, from what I know there's no right or wrong way to stretch your calves, there's just a lot of different options for doing it. Next are the hamstrings, oh, the hamstrings. Now without a doubt, everyone, what I struggle with the most are my hamstrings. I bet many of you out there do as well. I don't know what to do. I just feel like I stretch all the time very consistently. I try to listen to everyone who encourages me like I really do stretch and my hamstrings, they just don't want to loosen up but anyway, and I know like flexibility is not the name of the game for runners but I do think general flexibility, like it's not like we're trying to put our head against our knees, like I'm not looking to be that flexible but I must say I need to work on my hamstrings. So anyway, here we go. I use a rubber, a big band for my hamstrings and I usually start just resting like this just to kind of let the hamstrings know coming for them, just kind of like this, just straight leg, hold it for 20 to 30 seconds and then I'll put my head down and then I'll go into the deeper stretch where I'll let my leg down and then come back and then bend my knee, just a slight bend in the knee, not much but a slight bend because that's what gets that hamstring rather than stretching the back of the knee. If you bend your knee, that's what really starts to get the hamstring. So as usual, two sets of 30 seconds for each leg, so a total of two minutes of stretching. So I'll hold that for 30 seconds, just like that and slowly pulling it toward, you know, using your arm strength, pulling your leg back, backward but I really have to focus on that if, but then I'll switch also. Ooh, see this side is a little tighter. So, and it's a workout for your arms too as you try to pull your leg and then what you can do on the second set, so that I'll hold that for 30 seconds on the second set, what I'll do is I'll pull my leg back but then I'll drive the heel of my leg that is in the air, so my left leg right now, I'll drive my heel toward the ground but I'll use the resistance of the band to pull my hamstring back. So basically it's like a resistance exercise for my hamstring and I should, in theory, be able to move, I should be able to move my hamstring back further and further. So, like right now I'm pushing my heel toward the ground and I'm resisting with the band and then in theory, over time, if I had more time right now, my hamstring would be able to come back and again it's on that second set that I do that for 30 seconds, both legs. Okay, next, IT band with band. So your IT band, okay, this is a little controversial because I realized the tendon, IT band, it's a tendon. You can't really stretch tendons. I would, I realize it's not a muscle but I've heard a lot, anyway, I think you can, at the very least, and again I'm not a doctor, but you can loosen up the tendon, keep it limber rather than tight. All right, so the IT band basically is same thing, the band, you're holding it over and I should say your IT band goes from your knee all the way to your hip, okay, right along here and of course your hamstrings are in the back of your leg. So your IT band, what you're gonna do, you're gonna cross your leg over and you're gonna pull with your left arm so if I'm stretching my right leg, my right IT band, I'm pulling with my left hand over my body just like that. And again, as always, two sets by 30 seconds. I would, I'll just say everybody, if you have time to hold the stretch for longer, it cannot hurt. If you can hold it for 45 seconds to a minute, if you have time, perfect. But at the very least, I would recommend 30 seconds, okay? So that's your IT band stretch. Oh man, so then you'll switch over to your left, so just like that, oh my gosh. It's just getting this entire outside of your leg really, really well and it doesn't feel amazing but I know it's doing good, okay? So that's your IT band stretch. I've added this in, I've added the IT band stretch in more so, frankly, because of my runner's knee and because of my physical therapist. He is a big fan of the IT band stretch, all right? There you go, next is the tibialis anterior stretch. So you can, all right, you can do this in a chair but I think you can also do it on the ground. It might be a little more effective in a chair. Basically, yeah, okay, I'm gonna get a chair. So for this one, you're gonna sit with your leg crossed and you're stretching again. Remember the foam rolling we did to warm up this area right on the outside of your shin of that tibia bone. So now the tibialis anterior, you're crossing your leg over and then you're pulling your foot toward your body. So if I'm stretching my left leg just like this, oh my goodness, it feels amazing. Oh man, so you're getting that tibialis anterior all through here and again, if you're tight, if you have shin splint issues, this is the stretch for you going gentle at first. Don't go crazy with it, just gentle at first to get that tibialis anterior. Whoo, oh my goodness, that feels good. Okay, there you go. Now, listen, we could stretch as runners all day. We could do 50 stretches. I don't know 50 stretches but those are the main stretches that I do, okay? I'm gonna run you through them again right now. The hip flexor stretch, all right? There it is on your screen. The cobra and again, the hip flexors is for your hips, the front of your leg right up by your hip. Number two, the cobra, okay, to get your back, especially your lower back, there's the cobra, your glutes, all right? Along with your piriformis, all right? There's the glutes. That's how I like to stretch my glutes with that position but there's a couple different ways to do the glutes. Your quads, all right? That is number five I believe is your quads. Again, I do them maybe a little different than other people but there's a couple different ways to stretch your quads. Your calves with a slant board or again, there's a lot of different options for stretching your calves. I'm probably gonna start integrating the slant board exclusively for my calves when I'm stretching at my house. Next, hamstrings with a band, IT band stretch, tibialis anterior stretch. Now, there's some other ones, for example, us runners we often forget about our arms. I think there's definitely a good, we should stretch our arms. I would say we don't put a ton of attention to our arms but crossing your arm over again there, right? To get that shoulder stretch, I'll be gonna be completely transparent. I don't stretch my arms all the time but I think it's a good idea especially, let's say before a big workout or a big race where you just really wanna be limber, all right? So stretching across to get that shoulder and trapezoid stretch, all right? And then also you can do a doorway stretch. I'll show it to you here right now. So if I'm getting my left side, so boom and then boom and I am stretching that pec real good right now. Again, I'd say it's nuanced. If you don't have time to do your upper body, I understand. Lower body is definitely most important for runners but I think it's a good idea before bigger workouts, bigger races where you're just, you wanna make sure there's nice good fluid motion with those arms as well. Next up, here we go, section three for prehab work for runners at your house. Strengthening our feet. 80% of the injuries in the last 22 years of running for me have been in my feet. Not in my knees, not in my hips, you know, not in my hamstrings, it's been in my feet. So this section is really important for me and it all starts with a towel. All right, here we go. Obviously with the approval of everyone else in the house. Okay, here we go. So you wanna be barefoot, put the towel on the ground. You can probably already guess what I'm gonna do here and for each foot. So here's my right foot. We're gonna scrunch the towel up as much as possible three times for each foot, okay? So here we go. So you see that? See how my toes are doing the work here? This strengthens the bottom of your feet. I'm actually doing a little better than I expected. And it takes time everybody. It usually takes about 20 to 30 seconds to scrunch up the towel completely and you gotta work, especially toward the end to get that towel all the way scrunched up and toward the very end, it's sometimes almost impossible. But there we go. Okay, so there we go. So that's the right foot. You spread the towel back out and then the left foot, this is my weak foot, same thing. And again, what we're doing is we're firing all those little, especially on the bottom of our feet, which as my grandmother always says, the feet of our bodies is the foundation of our bodies. So we gotta take care of our feet. We gotta make them strong, especially me. So here we go, scrunching up the towel with my left foot. See, I can already tell this side's gonna be a lot harder because it's my, it's my, I'm also not as coordinated, which this helps with coordination for your feet. And it should, again, should take 20 to 30 seconds. Wow, this side's so much better. That's amazing. So just keep going, keep going. It just takes time. And again, you're firing all the little muscles, you're strengthening that fascia tendon. If you struggle with plantar fasciitis, this could really, really help you. This is what I have been doing and have done in the past, especially when I struggled in college with plantar fasciitis. And again, toward the end of the towel, sometimes it gets really difficult that last two inches. So if you, as long as you get up to 30 seconds, you can call it good. All right, so there you go. Feet strengthening with the towel. Next is the, oh yeah, the stability disc. Now, out of all the gear, if you're thinking about picking up one item of gear, this might be at the top of my list, okay? So what you're gonna do is you're gonna stand here and we're just gonna do ankle rotations, all right? So I'm standing, again, barefoot is always better than shoes. And what I'm doing is ankle rotations. So I do two sets of 10 for both feet, but in both directions. So you'll rotate clockwise 10 times, all right? On your right foot and then you'll switch. Then you'll go, is this clockwise? No, this is clockwise right now. So this is clockwise, clockwise, clockwise 10 times. And this is working your ankles, your feet, your toes, everything, it's amazing. All right, so you do two sets of 10 on your right leg and you rotate clockwise and plant counterclockwise 10 times, all right? So this side, so again, we're gonna go clockwise, all right? 10 times, see that? And I am balancing myself, okay? Just so everyone knows, and then counterclockwise. All right, there you go. Counterclockwise, and you do 10 times, I won't do 10 feet right now, just to keep moving through everything. So those are ankle rotations. Okay, next, here we go. Perpendicular single leg lifts, okay? Again, balancing on one leg and then just raising your opposite leg up that's not on the balance, and two sets of 10, both sides. All right, so I guess that's a 40 total, if you like to do the math that way. You don't have to lift your leg up too much, but in addition, you're also strengthening your hips as well for this, all right? So there's the right side and here's the left side. So these are the perpendicular single leg lifts on the balance disc, all right? So both sides, two sets of 10, and slower of course is always better. Slower is always better, all right? There you go, there we go, all right? Now this one is ridiculously hard. I think this is the hardest one, no doubt. Again, single leg and blind. So what do you do? You close your eyes, and this just takes practice, practice, practice. I need to continue to work on this, and I've been doing this for a long, long time, but your balance on one leg, I like to keep my hands right about here, and then once you feel like your balance is in pretty good order, you close your eyes and you try and balance with no other movement for, again, 30 seconds. It's very difficult, very difficult. In fact, I'm struggling right now with my eyes open, okay? So basically you're gonna close your eyes, because as soon as you close your eyes, you lose your depth perception. But what happens, and I'll film my foot in a second, is your ankle starts to freak out a little bit and starts to really fire in a lot of, like it just starts to really overcompensate and you're really using all these little muscles, tendons, ligaments down there in a big, big, big way. Like I'll film my ankle in a second and you'll be laughing at how much it's moving. Again, here's that blind. My eyes are open right now, open, open, open, and watch when I, when I say closed, watch my ankle. Closed. See how it just starts to kinda freak out because you lose your depth perception. There we go. So it's just, again, it's forcing your feet, it's forcing your feet to compensate for that depth perception and really struggling to keep your balance and oh, it just works that ankle and that foot so, so, so well. Okay, last ability exercise is the moon landing. So this is a little more advanced. Don't feel like you need to do this right out of the gate, but once you work up to it, it's great, I love it. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna jump on to the disc and I even like to go up into the runner's position, the running, yeah, the running position and then back off, okay, and then alternate to the other leg, boom, and then up to the running position and again, you're just firing all those ankle and feet muscles just in an amazing way and then back off and you're about, just so you know, you're about two and a half feet back from the stability disc, maybe three feet at the most. So boom, okay, and depending on where you land on the stability to disc will impact kinda how your ankle, and this is really, this is really good for trail running and strengthening your ankles. If you're concerned about rolling your ankles in the summertime when you're out running the trails, this is a great one for just really strengthening those ankles for the roots, the rocks, all of that stuff out there in the trails during the summertime and you know, maybe even in the wintertime as well. So again, as always, two sets of 10, both sides, that is called the moon landing on the stability disc. Okay, so the foot log. This was my 2018 recovery gear of the year. I love it for not only massaging my feet, but stretching the bottom of my feet and many of you have seen me use this already as far as for stretching, but literally, you just stand right in the bottom of your foot, right on it. Now I don't put all my weight on it, but I do put a lot of weight and I'm just stretching out that fascia and all those tendons down there, muscle down there at the bottom of the feet, just putting my weight into the bottom of my foot, gentle at first, oh, everything I say, gentle at first, but then you can work your way up and then eventually after I feel stretched out, I'll start to massage the bottom of my foot, just rolling through that foot log as always, as slow as possible, okay, and get that heel. Oh my goodness, I just, I love it. It just feels, it feels amazing and I think it's actually doing some really, really good things for the feet and then of course, I'll switch to the other side, so stretch in the bottom of the foot, rolling out. Oh my goodness, it's just amazing. Total, this probably takes, you know, two minutes, so it's not too much time for the foot log. There you go for that. Now, last but not least is self massage. I actually don't have it out here, but if you have some lotion, that's good, but you can also just do it yourself, just with your hands, okay? And I picked this up from a fan on Instagram, you know who you are. He is just, I'm always impressed with the strength and mobility of his feet and he tells me that he is constantly working his feet with massaging, like just always just starting out gentle at first, but then slowly digging in to his feet with his hands and just working out all the little niggles in there, because you know when you're running high volume, your feet, they take a pounding and they need some TLC, so this is, but I also think some good self massage can also help loosen up, but also strengthen your feet as well, especially if you do it consistently, okay? Okay, so again, here's my foot. Just work in the bottom of that foot, really good. Now it probably would help to have a little bit of lotion just so you know, but you can just work those feet out. Just work them out. And again, when your feet are really tired, this can be a little painful, but I think it's a really, really good idea just to work the kinks out and then of course switch to the other foot as well. Last but not least on the docket is hip, strength and mobility. Everyone, pre-habbing, I learned so much. I know this runner's knee was not a fun injury to go through, like for me or even for, you know, anybody that wanted me to go race in Houston or go race at the Olympic trials, but the lessons that I have learned through this, I would say it's been a, I'm just gonna say it's kind of been a quicker injury compared to let's say a bone injury, but I've learned so much from the physical therapy so I'm gonna communicate that with all of you again. I've filmed many of these things for you in the past, but now I'm packaging it into one long video. Thanks for sticking with me by the way through this long stuff. But again, you can bookmark this. If you got a zip off to work, you can come back and re-watch this later and see how I'm doing all of the exercises and movements and the tips that I've picked up from the PT on how to do them correctly, okay? So here we go. Hip strength and mobility gonna, let me just get this pad moved into the middle of the room. I will recommend, if you can, these ankle weights are really important eventually. You don't have to have them at the beginning. In fact, I wouldn't use them at the beginning, but let's say three weeks, four weeks, maybe five weeks down the road, if your hips are feeling stronger, you can add, and these are four pound ankle weights. I think they sell them as light as basically a pound or two. These are pretty heavy. The ones that I use at the physical therapy office are three pounds, these are four pounds, so, but I would really recommend these to basically go to the next level of strength in your hips, all right? So I'm gonna put these on my ankles. Actually, I just forgot. We're actually gonna loosen up my hips first, so I've actually filmed these for you in the past already, but I'm gonna do it again. Actually, let me move the camera. Okay, here it is. The windshield wipers, you know the drill. So these are the windshield wipers with your hips. Oh my goodness, it feels so good. So you're just going back and forth, back and forth. All right, windshield wipers, two sets of 10, two sets of 10 on both. I guess it would be, so you can do 10, and then you can rest if you need to, or you could just do 20 straight. You can probably just do 20 straight. So all the way through, so boom, 20 of these, 20 of these, back and forth, and then windshield wipers with hip hinge. So again, hopefully you can see this. Let me just move that up a little. So it's the windshield wiper, but with a hip hinge, okay? So you're gonna go across and then dip down, okay? Hinging at your hips, all right? So boom, boom, hip hinge. Again, 20 of them, boom, boom. And again, what we're doing here is just warming up those hips and stretching them out a little bit for the actual exercises. So boom, across, boom, hip hinge. All the way down to the ground with your nose. Boom, oh, it feels amazing. So those are the windshield wipers and then hip windshield wipers with hip hinge. I'm a lot of hip. Okay, next on the docket is the supine active straight leg raises. I've got the ankle weights on. You're on your back. One knee is bent and then the leg that is straight, okay? It's gonna be doing the work. You wanna flex your quad. That's critical. Flex your quad in order to fire everything in your hips, okay? So we're just like this and we're gonna go to 10. So three sets of 10, both legs. If you can go, just go do 30, great. That's a lot of times what I do, but if you need to break it up, it's totally fine, especially when you're just starting out. So flexing the quad, raising the leg up and what I have found to be very effective is to go down slow. That makes it much harder. And so up and again, bring it up, you know, basically to 90 degrees. If you can't quite get it there, that's okay. I'm not quite there. And then again, three sets of 10. Again, flexing that quad is the key and it makes it much more difficult, all right? So there, you go to 10 on that side and then switch. Put your other knee up in the air, flex the quad on the left leg and then up. Oh man. So two, all right? So this is the supine active straight leg raises, all right? So three sets of 10 on both sides and then next, sideline hip abduction, all right? Sideline hip abduction. So what we're gonna do is lie on our side. You can bend the knee that's on the ground just a little bit for a little stability. And again, flexing the quad on the leg that's gonna go up in the air. So flex that quad and then you've got the ankle weights. Hopefully you can see everything here. And then again, three sets of 10, both sides. If you can do 30, you know, if you need to do two sets of 15, that's okay. But, and you don't need to go crazy high. That's actually too high. Just like right there. It's about all you need right there and then come down slowly. Slow, so up, down, and then slowly, slowly up, slowly back down. Remember, flexing that quad muscle. So then you'll flip for the other side, you'll flip over, okay? So again, you can use your bottom leg for a little stability, straight leg, flex the quad and then three sets of 10, two sets of 15 or one set of 30, all right? So there you go. This one is the side lying hip abduction. You will feel the burn in your hip by the end. Trust me, you will feel that burn. And then next is the prone single leg raises. So this one you're getting on your stomach. Let me just get that situated. Okay, you lying on your stomach, all right? And then, just like it sounds, single leg. So here we go. So I'm doing my left leg first, straighten it out. And then boom. So you're gonna do three sets of 10, same thing, both legs, okay? So the key is you don't wanna rotate in order to lift that leg up. You don't wanna rotate. You wanna stay as straight as possible. So you wanna keep your right hip on the ground, just nice and like it's cemented into the ground. That right hip, if you're working your left leg, okay? So you don't wanna rotate at all. So there you go. So four, six, eight, 10. Let's say I did 10 and then switch. And then again, flex that quad in the right leg if I'm doing my right leg. One, two, three, four, five, six. All the way up to 10, all right? So there you go. So that is the prone single leg raises. So next is we need something in here. Next up are the clamshells. I love the clamshells. They're just nice, it's a good one. I like it a lot. So clamshells helps to have a resistance band but you don't have to have a resistance band, especially when you're starting out but eventually you're gonna want a resistance band. Again, these are from the Yes4All company right there. And so put it around your leg just like that. And then around this leg just like that. And then just like a clamshell. And again, same deal, three sets of 10, both sides. So that would be one, so up and down. You might have to hold it so it doesn't slide off your leg. So two, three, four, then all the way up to 10 and then you simply flip over for number for 10 on this side. Okay, and then you're gonna do three, so 30. So it's gonna be 60 total. So one, two, three, and it will burn, trust me, by the end. All right, so those are the clamshells with a resistance band. Great one, love that one a lot. Okay, next up, oh boy. Single leg hip bridges, single leg hip bridges. This one doesn't exactly feel good. Now I keep my ankle weights on, you don't have to. Just for a little more challenge, I like to keep my ankle weights on. Basically you're lying on your back, your knees are bent. For this one, the trick is that you want to remember that a rod is going through your foot through your heel and so your heel needs to stay on the ground and you wanna get your power from your heel, okay? So if your heel is on the ground, on my right leg, again, hopefully you can see that, so you're gonna straighten your left leg and then you wanna make sure these legs are staying parallel, okay, moving up into the air. So what's gonna happen are my hips are gonna go up to about here. They're gonna go up and down, up and down. Of course, three sets of 10, both sides. Let me just move this mic here real quick. Okay, I'm just gonna put it right there, okay? So ready? So we're gonna go one, two, three. And again, the power comes from your heel, not from your toe. It's gotta come from your heel because that's what's gonna be working your quad, okay? And then so six, seven. And trust me, this burns. Eight, nine, 10. And I need to work on these, honestly, okay? So right leg straight, just like that. Heel in the ground and then the other side, two, three. And these are really getting your hips, really getting your hips. Four, five, six, seven. All the way up to 10, okay? But everyone, if single leg is too hard, that's okay. It's totally fine. You can do double leg to start, okay? So double leg is just like this. One, two, three. But frankly, double leg is way, way easier. So if double leg feels too easy, it probably means you can try single leg, all right? So there you go. Single leg, hip bridges. Next are the fire hydrants. So you know how the dogs do their business, all right? So fire hydrants. For this one, I only do two sets of 10. So basically you're in a, on a four, like four. So your hands are on the ground, your knees are on the ground and you're just gonna lift your hip up, okay? So you're gonna do two sets of 10, both sides. So 40 total. So see how I'm doing that? Lifting my hip up. Just like a dog at a fire hydrant, all right? So here you go all the way up to 10 and then switching over. And the key is that you don't want your hips to rotate. You know, you don't want your hips to roll. You don't wanna go like this. You wanna stay nice and straight once again. So just like that. Just like that. There we go. My right is struggling a little bit. Okay, so I'll just do my left one more time so you can see it. So again, these are called fire hydrants. Again, trying to keep those hips nice and level, not rotating too much, okay? All right, there you go. Those are the fire hydrants. Next, oh yeah. Next, donkey kicks. Two sets of 10, so 40 total. So boom. And again, you don't need to raise your leg way up in the air. Okay, let me just move down a little bit. You can just go straight out. So 10, so it'll be two, three, four, five. And I just keep the ankle weights on for all this for a little more resistance, basically. Eight, nine, 10, and then switch over. So these are donkey kicks. Two sets of 10, 40 total. There you go. There you go. And there you go. All right. Okay. All right, so those are donkey kicks. Next are the mountain climbers. Okay, these are hard. These are very hard. So you're gonna get down on your elbows like this, and then you're gonna bring your hips up just like that. Two, three, alternating. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. I like to do three sets of 10 for the mountain climbers because in addition to your hips, you're also working your core in a big, big way. Those are called mountain climbers. I'll do them one more time just so you can see, all right, three sets of 10. One, keeping the leg off the ground. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Here's the deal, everyone. 10 days ago with my knee, I could not do those mountain climbers. No way, no way. So that's a good one. Okay, next up are the, here we go. This is fun. So we're gonna take the ankle weights off. We're done with these, okay? So here we go. This is where it gets fun for me is the slant board. Okay, let me just make sure we're looking good here. Okay, so this slant board was recommended, yes, from a lot of people, but one gentleman in particular, he knows who he is. And he has suffered from runner's knee in the past. I've added this into the rotation. It's working your hips, but it's also working a lot of different other things as well, a lot of other things as well. Your knees, your quads, it's working everything. It's basically a reverse squat, okay? I'll just show it to you. So eventually you can work up to three sets of 10. And yes, I am still barefoot just to help fire those feet. And I'll do a couple different angles for this. The key for this one is that you want your knees to stay over your toes. You don't want your knees to end up way out here. So you want to keep your knees back. So you're squatting with your actual glutes. So you want your butt to stay back, okay? So here we go. So three sets of 10 again. Watch my knees, and I'm gonna try and concentrate on keeping my knees back. So it makes it much harder. So that'd be one. And again, slower is better. If you have runner's knee, don't do this unless you've been approved by your physical therapist and or you have basically little to no pain in your knee. You don't want to overstress runner's knee, okay? So again, keeping my knees back. Ah, that's nice. So again, three sets of 10. Slower is better. Slower is always better. And you might need, definitely, definitely, you can work up to three sets of 10. You don't need to do them right out of the gate, okay? So just like this. Down we go, keeping that butt back, you know, back that way, okay? Now let me just do another angle just so you can see the front, okay? And that'll get you, that'll get you burning. I must say, those legs, they're screaming. They are screaming, okay? So again, we're trying to strengthen the quads, everything around the knee, especially for me, in order to help prevent runner's knee in the future. But just down, okay? And you don't want your knees to come in. You don't want them to go out straight, just nice and straight, okay? And again, keeping those knees over the toes, okay? There you go, there you go. Just do one more just so you can see nice and slow. Okay, perfect. All right, so that's the slant board and the reverse squat. Now for this, this is simply called the lateral resistance band. So the resistance band is around my ankle. Let me adjust the camera so you can see that. If you see that, I'm putting that around there. And then what you're gonna do, let me move the camera back up so you can see, is you're gonna go to the left and then come back. And for me, in my house, it's about maybe 25 feet, maybe 30 feet. So I think that's a good distance to go approximately. Of course, it depends on, maybe if you live in an apartment building, you might have to use the hallway. Your neighbors might think you look a little weird, but that's okay. Or your dorm room, if you're in college, okay? So you wanna keep, you wanna stay low. That's the key with this. You wanna stay low. So not like that, but just like, you don't wanna be up like this. So you wanna be kind of in a little bit of a squatting position and then move your left leg. And then when you bring your right leg over to your left leg, you want your right leg to come up in the air. You don't wanna drag your foot across the ground. You want it to come up, okay? So let me start again right here. So we're gonna go boom and then up. Boom and again, staying low to the ground for your butt. So all the way across the ground here and then back. Okay, so I didn't go all the way, but this is the lateral resistance band, really good. Really works a lot of different things. Strengthening the knee for me with my runner's knee has been amazing, okay? So there you go. That is the lateral resistance band. I'll do it one more time just so you can see. And again, so what I'll do is I'll do three sets of about 25 feet, okay? So maybe approximately, it doesn't have to be exact as long as you're getting the work in and you stay facing the same direction the whole way because on the way back, you're going, does that make sense? You're going, your left leg is bleeding. My left leg is leading right now. And on the way back, my right leg will lead. Hopefully that makes sense. So there we go, lateral resistance band and then I won't go all the way and then back. So right now my right leg is leading, butter my bread, boom, and oh man, it burns by the end. That's getting your hips in a big, big way, okay? The next one is the monster resistance band. So basically you're going to go forward on the way out and backward on the way back. Again, about 25 feet out, whether it's your house or your dorm room, whatever, wherever you can find someplace that's 25 feet. And then, so here you go. Hopefully you can see this. So you're going to keep your feet together and then you're going to step to the right and then bring your left foot to your right foot and then step to the left and bring your right foot to the left and then out and then out and then again, lifting your leg up that's trailing, okay? So boom, boom. And again, you want to stay low. I didn't do very well staying low there. And then on the way back, you're going to go backward. Okay, making sure you don't run into anybody. So boom, boom, all the way back. And this is, again, working to just firing your hips in a different way, okay? So I'm going to try that one more time just to stay a little lower. So boom, and you want to go forward. You don't want to go to the side too much. You want to fire forward. So boom, boom. I'll do one more. Then on the way back, boom, boom. And again, three sets by 25 feet, okay? Boom, boom, boom. And these are, again, yes, yes for all resistance bands, all right, and I am really loving these right now. Really loving these. Well, folks, butter my bread. If I did say so, I must say those resistance bands get me breathing. I'm breathing right now. And last but not least, for hip strength and mobility is the cord, all right? This is maybe one of my favorites that I've picked up from the physical therapist. These cords, this company, let's see what company is this. This is Fitness Gear. And I think it was, oh, was it $10? I think it was about $10 to $15 for one of these cords, okay? And this is a 30, which one, yeah, this is a 30 pound cord. So I'm gonna go connect it to my kitchen table and then show you how to do this in case you have not seen me do this a couple of days ago on the blog. Okay, so let's see. So we're gonna connect this end to here to the kitchen table, which should be enough weight to hold it down and pull it this way. And then with the other end, you're gonna wrap it around, well, either ankle, it doesn't matter which one first, because you're gonna do both sides and you're gonna pull this through here. And again, this is just firing those little muscles right around your knee, especially. So if it's on this one, that means I'm gonna be working, if it's on my left leg, it means I'm gonna be working my right leg the most, okay? Now for this one, you're gonna do one set of 30 but four different directions, okay? So this is the first direction where you're gonna balance on your right leg and then with a straight leg, you're gonna go out just like that, just like that, okay? So you're gonna do 30 of these. And by the end, it's actually your right leg that is doing a lot of work, okay? So again, working on that hip strength and all those little muscles down by your knee, right above your knee, especially like your lower quad. So you do 30 that direction and then you go like this. We're gonna do 30 this way. So putting your leg out to the front, okay? Whoa, and it's a balance exercise as well as you just saw there. So just like this, like this, like this, just like that. So you do 30 that way and then 30 behind you, okay? So hopefully this makes sense. So boom. So out to the, if it's, again, if you're balancing on your right leg, your left leg, this is the third one, your left leg is going out to the left and 30 of those. And then last but not least, you're gonna go back behind you, okay? And again, boom and trust me, by the end, you're really, really burning, okay? It's like, it's one of the hardest things I do at the physical therapy office, okay? So this is going that way, just like that. So you do 30 of those and like, even, yeah, I didn't even do half and like my leg is tired. It's really, really tired, okay? So that is the cord and that is my, and then to switch, you just switch it over to the other side and you do the same thing, okay? But opposite directions. So let me just show you real quick so you can see. So for this, you're gonna stand here but I'm gonna start this way because I started the other, so you're gonna go this way first, just like that, 30 of those and then this way, 30 of these forward and then behind, 30, okay? And then backward, all right? And then backward, boom. And so now I'm working my left leg as opposed to my right leg, bada-bing, bada-boom. That wraps up hip and strength, mobility. Whew, that was hard. Well folks, butter my bread if I ever said so, I must say by the end of all of that, I am breathing like it's, now I'm not running right now. So maybe I've lost a little aerobic capacity which is fine but it's a little bit of a workout and you can do these at your house. This prehab, I love that word prehab in order to hopefully avoid injuries moving forward and it's all these little things. Now here's the question of the day and I'm intrigued to hear your thoughts on this but it's these little prehabbing that I'm hoping and I listen, I've aspired to do this stuff for years and years and I've dabbled in it but I've never been able to fully commit. Why? Of course, time, right? And that's the question of the day. Be honest with me. How much time do you think you really, really have on a consistent basis and I should just say right now, all of this, you don't need to do this every day. I'm doing it every day because I'm injured and I'm trying to come back from an injury. Based on again, what I've been told in the past is two days a week and preferably three days a week is ideal. So question of the day, how much time do you really, truly think you have to accomplish prehab work? Whether it's five minutes, whether it's a half hour because guess what? All of that that I just showed you, it would honestly probably, it's probably gonna take you at least 40 to 45 minutes maybe more and I get it. We're busy people, you're busy and do you have an extra, if let's just say you're doing it three days a week, do you have an extra hour, two hours and 15 minutes a week that you can carve out for prehab work to hopefully avoid injury in the future, especially if you've been dealing with a lot of injuries in your running career. So that's the question of the day, just really drilling down into, drilling down into reality with your time and it's hard, it's hard. But that's, listen, it took me about an hour and a half but I was moving the camera around and, so it took me an extra time to set up the shots but I'll be curious to hear just that brutal honesty with how much time you think you have. All right, that's it for today. I realized that was a lot. Thank you for watching that long, long prehab vlog and again, you can bookmark this and then come back to it as much as you'd like in the future. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited for 2020 and I'll probably update this vlog once a year, maybe twice a year but probably once a year I'll obviously let you all know as I continue to learn different things that I think work and maybe don't work, not to mention everything in the gym. All right everyone, we're tossing it back on the right to a little more detail of foot and ankle strengthening on the right that I made about a month ago and then yes, a little more detail into the hip mobility and strengthening mobility on the left. Thanks for being here. Thanks for watching everyone, boom, boom, boom. Let's stay healthy in 2020. See beauty, work hard and love each other. See you tomorrow.